


Tender Is the Night

by paulmcfartney



Category: McLennon - Fandom, The Beatles
Genre: Fluff, M/M, McLennon, Slight pining, and john's a lovestruck puppy, as usual, paul loves a good snuggle, paul's up late studying for his final exams, this took a while to crank out and it's honestly so cute wtf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-25
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-27 16:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14429469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paulmcfartney/pseuds/paulmcfartney
Summary: paul's up until the late hours of the evening studying for his final exams, and john's having an incredibly hard time holding himself back from just kissing him already.





	Tender Is the Night

**Author's Note:**

> @RennaLemma on tumblr drew some absolutely amazing fanart to go along with this fic, and you can find it [here!](https://rennalemma.tumblr.com/post/173291444549/some-sketches-of-euphorias-s-beautiful-fic)

It’s one a.m., and all of the lights are dim except for in the kitchen where Paul’s sitting at the table. His eyes are drooping, but he’s insisting that he’s wide awake from all the caffeine he’s consumed in the past two hours (“Piss off, you git. I’m awake!”) His dwindling cup of coffee sits cold in the center of the table, surrounded by a binder that has to be at least a meter thick, a slew of papers delving deep into the inner brain and spinal cord, and three notebooks filled to the brim with medical terminology. Paul’s hair is all over the place, and he combs through it with a steady hand and a tired sigh. 

John sits silently across from him, casually flipping through a book of his own and stealing glances at the disheveled boy across from him. He can’t help but give a slight smile at his dark green flannel pants and gray t-shirt, while he hugs his knees to his chest. It sort of feels like he’s looking at an exhausted puppy who would love nothing more than to curl up in bed and sleep for hours on end. John finds himself hoping that just maybe Paul would curl up with him at the end of the night, whenever that would be.

Paul flips a sheet of paper over in his massive binder, and mutters something to himself quietly, trying desperately to remember everything before this massive exam he had coming up two days from now, well, one day from now technically. Nearly every other day, John would come home to his flatmate and best friend complaining for what seemed to be hours on end about how incredibly difficult this class was, and how he was certain that he’d probably die before the end of the semester. If he’d spend as much time studying for this final as he spent complaining, he’d be crystal clear, John thinks, and stands himself up to pour Paul another cup of coffee--his third of the night. 

“Thanks,” Paul mutters exhaustedly, and sips the still scalding hot coffee in earnest. He swears that he hears John murmur “not tired my ass” under his breath, but he doesn’t feel up to challenging him at this ungodly hour. 

“How much longer do you think you’ll be up, mate?” John asks, still feeling all woozy from the thrill the younger boy’s eyes gave him. 

Paul huffs and flips another page, uninterested. “Who knows. I’ll turn in when I feel more comfortable with the material, and by the looks of it, there’s still a while to go yet,” he mumbles, and the messy mop of dark hair on his forehead flops down even further over his eyes. John allows himself a soft smile, and feels his cheeks grow warm along with the increasing heartbeat in his chest. 

John pauses contentedly for a moment, and later pulls one of Paul’s several papers over to his side of the table. “What function is the olfactory nerve responsible for?” he questions, slightly hesitant on the pronunciation of the unfamiliar word. The younger boy’s clean brows furrow together above his nose, and he thinks for a minute. “Sense of sight?” Paul responds after some while, not at all confident in the answer that he just gave John. It absolutely killed him to tell a confused Paul that he was wrong when all he wants to do is praise him and give him quick little pecks on his lips whenever he responds correctly. 

“Sorry, mate. Sense of smell.” John feels a little chunk of his heart break off when he realizes how frustrated Paul really is. His head falls between his thin legs, and he lets out a long, exasperated groan in contempt. 

“This is bullshit,” he mutters lowly, and rubs his tired, drooping eyes to wane off desire to sleep just for a little while longer. “It’s all bullshit.” Maybe the coffee will hold him off a little bit longer.

It’s now two a.m., and John’s absolutely certain that he’s witnessing some sort of mental breakdown on Paul’s end. The younger boy has been staring at one of the wretched papers for at least twenty minutes, and he hasn’t moved. Part of John honestly suspects that Paul’s mind was on its last leg, just gave out at some point, and made him kill over right then and there. He tosses the idea out, however, when Paul exhales dramatically, and grips his silky hair with spastic hands. 

“When am I even going to use this in the real world? I doubt my planned career is going to require me to know what a lateral bloody spinothalamic tract is, and whatever the fuck it does.” Paul takes another sip of his coffee--he’s on his fourth cup now--and scratches the back of his head. 

John’s still reading at the other side of the table, only partly paying attention to the younger boy speaking across from him. But when he finishes his sentence, John raises his eyes, and their gazes meet for a moment. He looks so incredibly soft, and John’s struggling to keep himself from picking Paul up himself and just carrying him to his bed. 

“You won’t. It’s all just a big ploy for the school to get more money out of you. Not fucking right, that is,” John responds casually, and slowly moves his eyes back down to his book. 

There’s a minute of silence, and John glances back up at Paul once he’s sure that he’s gone back into StudyLand, taking everything in slowly, but all at once. His hair is even more ruffled than before, but he keeps combing it down absentmindedly to keep himself occupied. John had dimmed the harsh kitchen light earlier, which allowed more of a warm glow to reflect off of Paul. He almost looked sort of cozy, like he was on the verge of falling asleep swaddled in a dozen fuzzy blankets. John felt a warm fluttering arise in his chest, which seemed to wake him up even more.

“You don’t have to stay up with me. You know that, right?” Paul speaks again, his voice steady. John looks up and they lock eyes again, making him feel drowsy in his seat. 

John shrugs, and responds, “I have to read this anyway, I might as well, y’know.” The truth was, John did have to finish reading The Tempest at some point, but it wasn’t anytime soon. Staying up late at night with Paul seemed like a treat to him, and he was more than happy to do anything for the boy that he needed. “And besides, I don’t think I would’ve been able to fall asleep with all this racket you’re making complaining.”

There was the golden grin that John had been searching for all evening. “Ugh, John fucking--piss off.” Paul was blushing, and John could see it clearly even under the dim light above them. John wondered if Paul wanted to kiss him right now as much as he did. 

Three a.m. settles on them like a warm, woolen blanket, and fills the air with a sort of coziness that neither boy could describe. Paul’s usually wide eyes are half shut now due to utter exhaustion as he scrambles to cram every last bit of information for his exam. He has his slippers on now, as he began whining about how cold his toes were about half past two, and John wasn’t up to hearing any more of it to be quite frank. 

It’s freezing in their little kitchen with the window open, and Paul, at some point, managed to sneak away for a moment and throw on a striped jumper. John, however, just has a blanket thrown over his back, and snuggles it close to his chest. He’d caved just recently, and made himself a cup of steaming hot chocolate, while the boy across from him continues to work on his now waning fourth cup of coffee. John had given up on reading a while ago, and sat at the table listening to the Simon and Garfunkel record he’d just put on in the sitting room for the two of them. His glasses are slid halfway down his nose as he twiddles his thumbs mindlessly. 

Paul seems brain dead with his messy hair and flannel pants and too-big-but-too-warm sweater and John’s having an increasingly hard time restraining himself from cradling him in his arms and peppering kisses over the soft skin on his cheeks and eyelids. John could almost imagine just holding him, keeping him warm with the chilly breeze flowing through the short curtains on the open window. Even imagining it brought a jump to his chest with want. Their hearts would swell with love when Paul’s hands crawl over his shoulders and around to the nape of his neck where little wisps of fine hair met the uppermost part of his back, and John’s mind swims with pure light and longing for the boy across from him who had seemed forbidden for so damn long, but his deep hazel eyes are hopelessly drowning John’s and there’s got to be at least a centimeter of space between them until he finally feels Paul lean in the tiniest bit more to-

Paul groans from across the table, and John seems to be watching everything pan out in slow motion in front of his very eyes. A hand drifts through his soft locks, and he yawns with a stretch of his torso, the jumper riding up almost a centimeter to reveal a miniscule sliver of his milky white skin near his belly button. He rises from his chair, and he seems wobbly and off balance. John can now barely hear the Simon and Garfunkel record playing faintly in the background, and he can only pick out a few words from the song itself--I can hear the soft breathing of the girl that I love, as she lies here beside me asleep with the night--except, John hears the lyrics from his point of view, like the gentle duo rising from the record player around the corner is singing only about Paul and his radiating beauty. Paul’s unsteady legs carry him towards John, and the latter holds his breath in anticipation of what he’ll do, because he’s headed straight for him and doesn’t seem to be turning back at any point soon. 

John proves himself to be right, much to his astonishment, and it feels as if his poor, aching heart is on the verge of bursting out of his chest and plopping onto his lap. However, there isn’t any room on John’s lap for his overworked heart to land, because Paul--as gracefully as anyone could ever possibly do this--sits straight across the older boy’s lap in an over exhausted heap of warmth and everything cozy in the world. He curls up like a child over John’s thighs, turning himself towards the beating chest welcoming him without a second thought and wrapping two woolen arms around his neck to hold himself there. Paul places his head in the junction between John’s lower neck and shoulder, and causes the boy beneath him to shudder when he exhales a long, peaceful breath over his sensitive skin. 

They sit in silence for a while, John still mainly in shock and too surprised to even utter a single word, and listen to the muted sound of the record running the entire way down to the scratchy end. The light breeze blew in through the window on occasion, and when it did, Paul only held onto John even tighter than before, and the older boy can feel his lips pressing into his neck with a lazy smile against the skin, making John feel like he ought to be dreaming or something of the like for there to be even the slightest possibility that this could ever happen. 

John’s hands weren’t quite sure what to do in the beginning, but they soon found their way around Paul’s back and held him tightly, followed by another content sigh brushing over his neck and a steady hand running through his own mess of auburn hair. Paul whimpered into his skin and rubbed circles into the nape of John’s neck with his thumb. John pulled the blanket around his back and placed it partly over Paul’s torso to keep him warm. He closed his eyes momentarily to savor whatever this was, because he wasn’t so sure if he’d have another chance in the future. 

A few moments pass by, and the only thing to be heard is the slight rustling coming from the record player and Paul’s light breathing against his neck. Paul sits up after some while, and John opens his eyes and turns to face him in their odd position. 

“Mmm, thanks for staying up with me until the wee hours of the morning, John,” Paul rasps in his over-tired voice, which makes a light shudder run down John’s spine. 

John gulps, and manages a slight smile that slowly builds the more time he’s gazing into Paul’s eyes. “Anything for you, love.” Everything feels dreamy and fuzzy, and John’s so afraid that Paul will leave that he only pulls him more towards his chest. He’s fighting his eyelids now, and he doesn’t want to waste a second of this, so it takes all of his might to keep his eyes open to see the exquisite beauty below him. 

John’s feeling bold now--so bold that he removes a hand from behind Paul and brings it around to tenderly stroke his cheek, causing the younger boy to shut his eyes and nuzzle into the warm hand treating him as carefully as you would fine china. Nothing in the world could top what he was experiencing now, John thinks, and he wouldn’t trade this moment for anything he’s ever wanted in his entire life. 

John’s mind is swirling and bursting with colors and light and everything pleasant in the world smushed up into one complete feeling of utter joy, something that he could only feel when he was with Paul, the one who came with endless smiles and laughter and warm memories since he was a daft seventeen year old boy hopelessly in love with his best mate. 

John notices when Paul makes a quick glance down at his lips, and now he’s fully upright, but still seated in John’s lap, and John isn’t quite sure if he just saw the tip of the younger boy’s tongue dart out and swipe along his full, bottom lip. And John nearly dies when he realizes what’s happening at this very moment, how Paul is only slightly beginning to lean into him and how their noses are starting to brush past each other as they each get closer and closer to their desired destination. Paul’s hands are still placed around the back of John’s neck, fingers linked together to ensure that this was really happening. One of John’s hands remained cradling Paul’s cheek, and his fingertips toyed with the faux sideburns sprouting out in front of his ears. But Paul is coming closer and closer and John realizes that this isn’t one of his incredibly disappointing dreams, but that this is reality, and that Paul McCartney, his best-mate-turned-world’s-saddest-crush-of-the-century, was right there, fully eager and willing to place his lips on John’s, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. 

When it happens, John’s mind runs white, absolutely blank and devoid of anything but Paul Paul Paul, and he short-circuits for a brief moment to adjust to the glorious feeling of their lips moving together in a steady harmony. It’s that feeling that you get that makes you think that the clouds are opening up in the dark skies above you, and there’s a choir of angels singing somewhere nearby. John can’t compare this moment to anything that he’s ever experienced in his entire twenty-three years of being. 

Paul’s right there against him with his nose nudging into his cheek and his head tilted so that they met at a more comfortable angle. Paul’s lips were soft, but held slight hints of roughness, especially because of the blunt stubble that he hadn’t gotten a chance to shave yet. Both of his hands soon drifted back to the sides of John’s face and rested there with grace. 

Their lips move lazily past one another, and the moment feels so incredibly right that John can feel his heart swelling in his chest with the most desperate need to be closer than ever. Goosebumps had broken out all over his arms, and he was shivering almost uncontrollably when Paul leaned even more into his lips with the most lovely sigh that John’s ever heard leave any mouth in his entire life. 

And then it’s all over, just like that. It’s almost like waking up in the middle of the best dream you’ve had in fucking ages, except it turns out that the fantastic, mind blowing dream is reality, Thank God.  
Paul takes his time to pull away only slightly from John, savoring the feeling and taste that lingered on his lips. John feels an uncontrollable string of tingles climb up his spine, and he opens his eyes, but he actually can’t quite remember the moment that he closed them. And Paul’s right there, centimeters away so that John could just so conveniently lean forward the slightest bit and connect them again at the place where he desired the younger boy the most. However, John decides to admire the deep hazel eyes gleaming back at him in the dim kitchen light, and he somehow just now notices the spatter of light freckles hopping across the bridge of the boy’s nose and fading off onto his cheeks. He’s never felt so alive in his life, and yet, the late hour looms over them in such a comfortable haze that neither of them move an inch. 

Paul’s eyeing the older boy’s lips now, occasionally breaking their gaze to glance down only for a split second and back up again almost immediately. John’s heart flutters, and he tries to get something, anything out of his mouth to break the intense, but strangely comfortable silence floating between them. He can’t utter out the few words he’s been yearning to say to the one he’s been pining after for so goddamn long: You’re the most fucking magnificent boy on this planet. 

Getting it out was a challenge, and John just decides to lean in and connect their mouths once again. He exhales against Paul’s cheek, and he can almost feel the boy chuckle lightly against his lips with a smile. Paul’s kisses make John feel like he’s just climbed Mount Everest, like he’s on top of the world with his veins pumping full of adrenaline and he’s losing air now, but it’s so so so incredibly worth every last ounce of oxygen he has left. And now Paul’s craning his neck to try to seemingly devour whatever was left of John, which wasn’t much with his sanity waning and all of his remaining energy being nearly sucked out of him from all of the adrenaline. 

This second kiss leaves them both breathless, and in complete and utter shock that they’ve been missing out on that for the past six years. Nothing had made either boy’s hearts rush as quickly and as urgently like this before, and newfound feelings were beginning to bloom in them and grow to create an even stronger and more secure bond than ever before. 

They separate, and now they’re connected at their foreheads, pressed up together in the wooden kitchen seat. The warmth between them is intoxicating, something that they’ve never felt before now. Eyes are closed, and breathing isn’t heavy, but slightly more elevated than usual. John wants so badly to open his eyes, but he’s concerned that he actually might die if his heart keeps up its relentless pounding against his chest, and his conscience is swirling around in so many different directions that he hasn’t quite caught up with it yet. He can hear that Paul’s nearly panting as well, and John would be willing to do anything to know what the younger boy was thinking at this very moment. 

Paul shifts on his lap, and John’s momentarily concerned that he’s getting up to leave. He stays curled up in his lap, and wraps his arms around John’s neck to pull him into a tight embrace, filling John’s heart to the brim with the purest type of love he’s ever felt towards someone else. Paul’s breath tickles the crook of John’s neck, making him lean over the younger boy even further and hold him as tight as he could. John thinks that he’s never felt this strongly about anyone before, not any other girl or boy, not even Cynthia. But Paul’s making all of these seemingly brand new emotions emerge in John all at once, and he can’t help himself from embracing all of them as they come. And he realizes that this for the better when he finds the courage to whisper in Paul’s ear: “I need you.”

It’s four a.m. now, and the flat is comfortably silent aside from the steady breathing coming from John’s little bedroom down the hall. The two lovestruck boys are curled up in a heap of warmth, with Paul half laying on his stomach with a hand draped over John’s chest, while John keeps an arm resting beneath the pillow that Paul’s hair is strewn across. Everything is perfect; the way Paul’s skin glows in the pale moonlight streaming in from the window on the other side of the room, and John watches with a tired awe how the boy’s long eyelashes occasionally flutter in his sleep. John doesn’t want to sleep when he can savor the feeling and sight of Paul strewn over him in a warm ball of love and warmth and contentedness with everything. John feels as if he’s the absolute luckiest man on the planet. 

That is, until his alarm clock goes off at seven thirty.


End file.
